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'I Want The Ulster Volunteers' Kitchener

April 2006

On August 8 forms were distruibited to UVF units on which they could sign up for service and on the 11 August a large advertisement proclaiming 'Your King and Country needs you' appeared for the first time in the Belfast News-Letter, along with the news of the new 'pals' battalions being formed in England, in which groups of friends enlisted together.

Throughout August a number of the UVF who were impatient to serve in the army joined up before the decision was made to create a division of the 'New Army' out of the Ulster Volunteers.

Newspapers of the time had shown that the UVF were the best prepared civilians in Britain to go into the army and train for battle and this fact of the UVFs potential had not gone unnoticed by Lord Kitchener, for two days after his appointment to secretary-of-war, Kitchener sent for Colonel T.E. Hickman MP, president of the British League for the Defence of Ulster and told him : "I want the Ulster Volunteers".

Hickman recommended that Kitchener see Edward Carson. The meeting was arranged and throughout it Kitchener and Carson argued about the Home Rule issue, with Carson keen to hold out for a political deal before fully supporting the war effort.

Carson also insisted that if the UVF were to be recruited then they were to be kept together as a unit and the prefix 'Ulster' was to accompany the number of the proposed brigade of division.

At the end of August after the continued debating of Carson and Kitchener a deal was struck which enabled Carson to return to Ulster and invite his volunteers to sign up in large numbers for service abroad.

The deal was that although the Home Rule bill would pass on 18 September a guarantee was given that it would not be made operative during the war and that there would be an amending bill introduced in the next parlimentry session to give parliment the chance to alter its provisions to accommodate the needs of Ulster.

At an Ulster Council meeting in Belfast on September 3, Carson announced the formation of the 36th (Ulster Division).

Recruitment was to begin immediately at the Old Town Hall and at civil buildings all across Ulster. The men would be trained initially in camps at Ballykinler, Clandeboye and Newtownards in Co.Down and at Finner in Co.Donegal and they would be enrolled in territorial units formed out of the local volunteer regiments.

Whilst those who joined up and went abroad to fight, sufficient members of heUVF would be kept organised and alert at home to take care of Ulster and ensure that it was not invaded.

From its newly acquired Head quarters at 29 Wellington Place in Belfasts City Centre, the Ulster Division began the task of forming into an army. Three Infantry brigades, twelve Battalions in all were to be formed.

Three field company's of the Royal Engineers, a Signal Company, and Royal Army Medical Corps personnel were to be recruited. Royal Army Service Corps, Cavalry and Cyclist sections were to be established in the Division. Whereas all the bodies were to be formed primarily of Ulstermen and the Divisional artillery was to be recruited in England.

The UVF had no artillery and it was thought that considerable delay would be caused by raising and training an artillery in Ulster, so the 153rd and the 145th Brigades, Royal Field Artillery were to be recruited from Croydon, Norbury and Sydenham and the 172nd and 173rd Brigade were to be from East and West Ham.These four Brigades of Londoners were not to join the rest of the 36th (Ulster) Division until the following year. The Commander of the 36th was Maj. General C.H.Powell, a former Indian officer with Captain Wilfred Spender becoming a General Staff Officer and the now Lt. Colonel James Craig the Assistant Adjutant and Quarter Master General.

Three Infantry Regiments and their Territorial base in Ulster - the Royal Irish Rifles in the East of the Province, the Royal Irish Fusiliers in the South and the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers in the West, so the 36th Divisions Infantry would be compromised of Battalions from all three.

 

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